1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to telpher railways and has specific reference to an improved chair-lift cab therefor which is intended to constitute each one of the carrier elements of the line, these elements being adapted on the one hand in actual service to receive ski-wearing passengers stepping in while the chair-lift cab is running, and on the other hand when inoperative to be shunted at one end of the line. More particularly, this invention is directed to a telpher line car of the so-called chair-lift cab type, provided with a front protection portion or shell adapted to be cleared upwardly preferably under the control of automatic means closing and opening automatically all the elements' shells at the starting and arrival stations of the telpher line.
It is notorious that during the operation of a telpher line the cars, cabs or like gondolas are subjected to considerable stress due for instance to the weight of the shell, to the wind force and/or to substantial accelerations and decelerations most likely to disturb or act against the movements of the shell and chair-lift assembly, and it is the essential object of the invention to make the shells insensitive to disturbing forces and also to permit a satisfactory free or easy access to the seats by tilting the shells to their open position above the seats and enable the chair-lifts or cars of a telpher line to fit into one another so that they can be gathered under a shelter of reduced over-all or floor-space dimensions due to the possibility of stacking them very closely to one another, these advantageous results being obtained by using a particularly simple cab construction.